Tuesday, May 22, 2007

SoundExchange's offer: perception vs. reality

it seems like SoundExchange is trying to diffuse the grass roots effort by trying to strike an acceptable but short-lived deal with small webcasters. The perception is that they're making a great offer to appease small webcasters. But the reality is that there are un-stated changes to the original SWSA and that this deal is only for the next 30 months, and then royalties will increase again.

Their press release says:

[SoundExchange] offered to extend to small webcasters through 2010 the terms of prior legislation known as the Small Webcaster Settlement Act (SWSA) with some minor modifications."
(snip)
These minor modifications include a revenue cap and a usage cap.

The details of of these caps are not provided. What if that revenue cap is $100,000? What if the usage cap is 500,000 hours a month?

I tried calling SoundExchange's news department to get more details on this, but I had to leave a message, maybe they'll call me back tomorrow.

As it currently stands, this press release seems to be all fluff, and no substance, and needs to be called out for what it is: an attempt to derail the current Internet Radio Equality Act now in congress.

Also, if anyone received a copy of the actual "settlement offer" that SX released, could you send it to us?

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